Cash For Council Candidates

These are tough times for a relative unknown to try to raise money for a political campaign, but it's gotta be done somehow -- it costs money to run a serious city-wide campaign. And we're only about 11 weeks from the preliminary election, if I'm not mistaken.

With that in mind, let's take a quick look at the 15 at-large Boston City Council candidates, who have just filed their end-of-June campaign-finance reports. I'll take them in order of their reported June receipts, and list their June receipts; their total receipts for the cycle (going back to Jan. '08 for incumbents, and for challengers whenever they opened their campaign account); and their cash on hand as of June 30. Plus, of course, I'll make comments. My apologies if I botch any of the math.

John Connolly -- June: $50,572 Total: $270,003 cash: appr. $70,000. (some is in savings) Connolly started in a hole, paying back loans that got him through the 2007 campaign. His 50k June puts him back in a decent cash situation, but still not exactly towering over the masses.

Ayanna Pressley -- June: $20,129 Total: $44,727 cash: $22,256. Given her late entry, she's moved quickly up the money-raised list. The question now is whether the monthly take will keep growing through the summer, or if she's tapped out the low-hanging fruit on her donor list.

Felix G. Arroyo -- June: $14,369 Total: $56,296 cash: $37,615. A good month for Arroyo (helped by his official campaign kick-off), in fact, his best yet, since opening his account in October. Keep it up.

Tomas Gonzalez -- June: $12,080 Total: $21,978 cash: $8726. He needed to start bringing in some dough, and he did. Still way behind the top tier, but this shows he can't be written off.

Tito Jackson -- June: $10,750 Total: $10,788 Cash: $10,041. This was pretty much all from a $10,000 loan to himself, but that still counts -- the postmaster and printer don't care. His real fundraising kicked off last week, after June closed (he's already reported about $2500 since then), so we have to wait to see what he can do.

Robert Fortes -- June: $3475 Total: $5875 Cash: $1341. The big question is whether Fortes can tap into the circle of Romney-Healey GOP contributors. So far he's got a few of them (including Dan Winslow and Renee Fry), so is that the start of something big?

Hiep Nguyen -- June: $2800 Total: $3200 Cash: $526. Help me out here, Hiep; I'm trying to see you as a candidate for the Final Eight, but I need to see some money.

Jean-Claude Sanon -- June: $1220 Total: $11,574 Cash: $4900. Sanon was planning a late-June fundraising push in the Haitian community. If this is all he got, that's a problem; if the fruits came in after June 30, he could be OK.